Wisconsin's stagnating state higher-education budget has forced the university to keep faculty salaries far below average. When professors get feelers from elsewhere, they learn that a move can easily mean a 100-percent salary increase--sometimes more. Budget problems have also depleted money for perks that keep faculty members on board--funds for research and travel, pay for summer months, reduced teaching loads, and longer and more frequent sabbaticals. Since the departures of faculty members last year, the political-science department has made some new hires that it is excited about. But it remains one of several departments at Madison, most of them in the humanities and social sciences, that are losing faculty members faster than they can replace them. As the faculty pay gap between public and private institutions widens nationwide, many public universities are having a hard time competing. But Madison is having particular problems, losing faculty members not only to well-off private institutions, like University of Chicago, but also to lower-ranked public universities. In the past few years, professors in a variety of disciplines have left Madison for Arizona State, Florida State, and Rutgers Universities and the University of Minnesota, among others. Some people worry that the wave of faculty departures is damaging Madison's reputation as a premier public institution. From 2006 to 2007, the university dropped from No. 34 to No. 38 in "U.S. News & World Report's" rankings of national doctoral institutions. And when it comes to faculty pay, Madison comes in at the bottom of a list of universities that it considers competitors. Despite the losses, some professors at Madison remain optimistic.